Because an elephant never forgets

Evernote is a piece of software for your computer (Mac or PC) and mobile device that makes it easy to keep track of any information that you come in contact with during the course of the day.  It allows you to save and label websites, documents, files, and even searchable images that you take yourself from within the app, all of which is synced to your account and other devices for retrieval at any time. It has an incredible range of uses from informational organization in one's personal life to managing the sharing and development of information for entire companies or communities. And it's free.

I first encountered Evernote while searching for fun and useful (and, if at all possible, free) apps back when I first got my iPad 2.  A number of different articles I read at the time mentioned Evernote in their top ten as a great tool for storing pretty much any and all types of information in one searchable, sync-able app.

So I downloaded it, played with it briefly, but ultimately forgot it.

That is, until the camp season started.  In the hustle and bustle of running camp, I accumulated lots of To Do lists, drafts of rule sets for the kids, diploma drafts, scribbled bits of inspiration, etc. All of these things existed on white boards, notebooks and yellow legal pads, all of which were prone to be lost, misplaced, or erased within the course of a busy day.

I had discovered in my early play session with Evernote that you could take pictures right from within the app and store them in its digital notebook. Very quickly, I started snapping pictures of my lists to be stored instantly in the iPad that I took everywhere with me.  I even began drafting diplomas and newsletters in the app itself.

Capture and tag notes, sticky notes, dry erase boards, scribbles, etc.

But it wasn't until I started seriously thinking about and working on my book idea that I saw the real value of this program to me.  I've started working on and saving the individual bits of the book as notes in Evernote, all tagged according to what chapter (or issue) and section they belong in for easy organization and reorganization as my intended structure changes and evolves. It's made it so much easier to keep track of what I've done, and I can hop around from thought to thought as the ideas flow to me.

The syncing feature is especially useful.  For example, I started working on this blog post on my laptop.  Part way through, my dog came to my bedroom door and starting giving me the 'I want to go out' routine.  So I dumped what I'd written so far into Evernote, hit the "sync" button, and walked downstairs to let the dog out. When I picked up my iPad and opened the Evernote app, there was what I'd been working on upstairs.

Another neat little add-on is the Evernote Web Clipper.  It installs automatically in Internet Explorer and Safari when you install Evernote on your computer, and the extensions are available for Chrome and Firefox as well. What it does is allow you to clip websites and articles, send them to the Evernote notebook of your choice, add tags, etc., all without leaving the browser.

One of the coolest things to me is the fact that Evernote is searchable. No big deal, usually but, as I mentioned, Evernote allows you to take pictures of documents and store them. This includes hand written documents, all of which are searchable.

I can search my written documents!

So, overall, Evernote is a pretty cool, pretty versatile application for all your computing and mobile information organizing needs!